First Ladies Traveling Exhibit - a review of sorts

Today, I stopped by the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia to see the First Ladies exhibit. I originally thought I'd go down last week, but it didn't officially open until Friday and then I thought it might be crowded today with it being a holiday, but it wasn't all that bad. It was $15, they offered no student discounts (I still carry around my grad school ID) and it included the "Freedom Rising" presentation and admission to their permanent exhibit on the Constitution itself "We the People," which was nice bargain, since you usually have to pay $12 to see just that, but I had already seen it last year - apparently there's no way to get an exhibit only ticket. It didn't appear that I was taking a seat in the theater away from anybody else, but once the woman heard I had been there before she tried to sell me on the membership for $35... I didn't think I'd be back twice more in the next 12 months seeing as this is the first exhibit I'd wanted to see since the place opened, so I said pass... even though they had this cute teapot ornament that said "first ladies" on it when you joined.
I looked in the gift shop, and they didn't have anything like that. They did have expensive china patterns: cups, saucers, mugs, plates... mostly with flowers that were supposed to be the favorites of particular first ladies, but nothing that even resembled the cool official china patterns that you saw in the exhibit. Anyway, the exhibit was smaller than I thought it would be. I had seen most of it as a result of the local news sponsor's teaser show on NBC-10 this weekend. They had some interesting artifacts and personal items I don't remember seeing before and a number of examples of the official china patterns, but I overheard more than one patron say that they expected to see more gowns on display. I guess this is just the traveling exhibit, and the rest must be on permanent display at the Smithsonian... or not, as it seems from their website that the American History museum is under renovations until the Summer of 2008. Realizing that now, I really wished there had been more gowns on display, too.